Makers vs. Takers at Occupy Wall Street

Students: Get a full week of this at an IHS Summer Seminar - http://lrnlbty.co/AC0k2g

The Occupy Wall Street protests have popularized the distinction between the lowest 99% and the highest 1% of income earners. Prof. Chris Coyne suggests that a distinction between makers and the takers is a better way to understand the problems that the protesters decry.

There are makers and takers in all income brackets in society. Makers are individuals who produce things that people value. When people trade with makers, both parties are made better off. Put another way, trading with makers is a positive sum game. Takers, on the other hand, are individuals who redistribute or destroy value, which is a zero sum or negative sum game.

The Occupy Wall Street Movement is really about the protesters' frustrations with the takers of society who fail to produce value for society, and instead, look to government to take wealth from others.

Coyne argues that we want a society with many makers and few takers. In order to obtain this outcome, we need to limit the takers by placing constraints on government, making it difficult to use government to take from the makers. Therefore, Occupy protesters worsen the situation when they ask for special government privileges such as eliminating student debt.

Watch more videos: http://lrnlbty.co/y5tTcY

Category:

Education

Tags:

• libertarian
• occupy
• wall
• street
• video
• protest
• OWS
• makers
• takers
• crisis
• recession
• crony
• capitalism
• corporatism
• economy
• learn liberty
• liberty
• freedom
• educational

[127prats]

Ron Paul 2012

[shananagans5]

The OWS fools protest the bailouts while they ask for socialism. Do they even realize they are asking for exactly what they are protesting or do they know but they are upset because they only want socialism that benefits themselves?

[greycloud24]

the value of education has went through the shitter. you need a college degree to be a mcdonalds floor manager anymore (maybe exaggerated). the problem is that the employment sector has lost most of the non-skilled employment we had in the past along with the fact that college has been made more widely available (at increased prices and easier standards to pass). thus now college just means you spent money, it doesn't make you skilled.

we need to overhaul the education sector.

[darkinertia2]

@shananagans5 your forgetting one thing, your basing that statement of the OWS movement on sensationalism created by the media to make all of ows look like socialist and freeloaders when thats just not true.dont get me wrong, there is A LOT of people like that at ows its kinda scary lol, but the main thing: take money out of politics. you stop the fundamental corruption in our government that way for the most part cuz its just simply legalized bribery. i do partly agree with you

[shananagans5]

@IdeasMoveNations Really? They want student loans forgiven. They want "free" healthcare. They want "free" education. They want to tax people that have "to much" to help out those that don't have enough. What exactly do you call that again? There is a huge diff in the corruption we see in some areas (which we all want out of the system) & simply becoming wealthy through capitalism. Is your deff of FOR the people taking from the successful to give to the unproductive? Many OWS supporters want that

[IdeasMoveNations]

@shananagans5

Your divide and conquer tactics are very transparent.

Noone who has familiarized themselves with OWS would honestly say they want socialism. What they want is a government FOR the people again.

Hint: Having Fox News tell you what OWS is about isn't familiarizing yourself.

[TyZi187]

Investors add credit and the ability to obtain assests you couldnt nomraly afford and if you invest in good projects it make it better for everyone. So investors are makers because they do add value to the economy. Of course CDOs and black magic banking is bad but that isnt investing.

[rufuguru]

I'm really surprised, I thought that this media skew wouldn't reach youtube. Occupy Wall Street is NOT a bunch of people who want a socialist society, most of the protesters don't even fully understand the message. Occupy Wall Street was started mainly in response to the Super Inflation caused by the Big Bank Bailouts.

[Thedriftor]

The worship of the mob, glorified.

[HeadshotZealot]

Instead the Occupy Supporters should all become inventors while the top 1% invests and speculates creating wealth from nothing and contributing zero to society while hoarding it all to themselves.

[cooljj82]

@cbcbarzarz You are asking what do we do when people work hard and leave a nice inheratence to their children. The answer is nothing, because its not your money.

[beachballa93]

The professor tries to make a distinction within the "1%" but the protestors don't see it that way. Based on what the people interviewed said, to them, people with wealth are greedy, regardless of how they achieved it (ethical or not). Not to mention what they advocate is more wealth redistribution which would ultimately lead to socialism. If we sit on the shoulders of the top 1% long enough, they will eventually move elsewhere. Then who will fund the entitlements the 99% loves so much?